


Trembling Wings

by Lomonaaeren



Series: Advent Fics 2016 [19]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Established Relationship, M/M, Romance, Trauma Recovery, Veela
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-31
Updated: 2016-12-31
Packaged: 2018-09-13 16:52:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,146
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9132946
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lomonaaeren/pseuds/Lomonaaeren
Summary: Side-story toFairest Creatures.What Draco was thinking during the scene where the professors force him and Harry to spend time apart to reduce their codependent bond.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This was an Advent fic requested by reviewer SP777 on AFF, for Draco's POV on part of Chapter 32 in _Fairest Creatures_. You should refresh your memory of that before reading this. Happy holidays!

**Title:** Trembling Wings  
**Disclaimer:** J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.  
**Content Notes:** Side POV of a completed story, angst, Veela  
**Rating:** PG-13  
**Pairing:** Established Harry/Draco  
**Wordcount:** 2000  
**Summary:** Side-story to _Fairest Creatures._ What Draco was thinking during the scene where the professors force him and Harry to spend time apart to reduce their codependent bond.  
**Author's Notes:** This was an Advent fic requested by reviewer SP777 on AFF, for Draco's POV on part of Chapter 32 in _Fairest Creatures_. You should refresh your memory of that before reading this. Happy holidays!

**Trembling Wings**

Draco's whole being was _burning_. And he couldn't open his eyes and couldn't express that. He could only huddle here.

"He will not die from being left. In the end, he will grow stronger than he will if you coddle him so much that he can do nothing without you."

_You don't need to do this._

Those were the words Draco wanted to speak. He wanted to sit up, strong and confident, and smile at both Professor Testig and Harry, and show that he was a proper Veela, committed to his mate but not dependent on him in the way they feared he was being.

But most of all, he wanted to tell Harry that he didn't need to _leave_. Draco could draw back and let him have some time alone if that was what he really wanted--even though Draco's tongue wanted to curl away from the taste of ashes in his mouth at the thought.

"But in the first few moments...how can I do it?"

Harry was the one speaking those words. They weren't _forcing_ him away! He was yielding to it because he thought it was for the best! Draco wanted to lift his head and let out a protesting shriek, but he couldn't even do that.

Testig flew across the room to stand between Draco and Harry. Draco thought about attacking her, but honestly, the weight of despair in his bones made him feel as if they had turned to steel. He shivered.

"You leave him to the mercies of someone who will take care of him. You do what you must, what one of your professors is telling you to do."

Draco waited for the way Harry would fly towards Testig and attack her, the way he should attack everyone who tried to keep him away from his mate. That was the _natural_ thing to do, the only thing that would make Draco sane again.

But even though he could see a slight movement beyond Testig that made it seem like Harry had crouched, his words were still weak and yielding, not the battlecry that Draco needed to hear. "I don't want you to hurt him..."

"I didn't say that I would. I promise by all I hold holy, by the circles on my wings, by the way I can fly, by the blood I was born with, that I won't harm him. Only heal him and help make him better."

That was a serious Veela oath, one even Harry should recognize with the instincts that had formed in him since he became a transformed Veela. And Draco felt it laid on him like a soothing hand on his forehead when he had a fever, one he fought instinctively. He didn't _want_ to be soothed!

Then he saw the way one of Testig's wingtips quivered, and blinked. It was ridiculous, but...it did seem as if she was signaling to him to sit still and not interrupt.

"I just don't want you to harm him," said Harry, and there was the sound of footsteps moving away. Draco sat up and opened his mouth. Testig lifted her wings again and spread them out so they were a solid bank of color and they couldn't see each other.

"I would never do so."

_She's doing it right now! Why can't Harry see that?_ And mixed in with all of Draco's other emotions was the horrid one of betrayal at the hands of his mate.

He screamed, and went on screaming. He heard Harry yell, and felt the bond between them stretching as though someone had begun to pull on the string. Draco spread his wings, and tried to fly the distance between them.

He slammed against a wall of blue light that someone-- _Testig--_ must have cast over the door. Draco tried to see through it, but could only make out blurry shapes on the other side. He clawed and cried and made enough noise that he never heard Professor Testig coming up behind him.

"Calm down at once."

The sharp words were like a bucket of cold water poured on him. Draco recoiled, and blinked. The fog was lifting from his mind, oddly enough. He would have thought kindness would do it better than harshness, but perhaps not.

"But if I don't bond properly with my mate," he whispered, "that means I'm not a real Veela."

"Why would you think that?"

Draco turned around, blinking and rustling his wings. Testig only stood there and looked calmly at him, instead of getting angry about it the way Draco had thought she might. Draco licked his lips and took a slow step away from the barrier. Where was the Veela who had just sworn a serious oath and woke him, hard, from his trance of grief?

"I'm already a transformed Veela instead of a born one. That means I don't belong, according to some people."

"Not the opinion of anyone who matters." Testig dismissed the people who had captured Harry and tried to destroy both him and Draco with a toss of her head, and wandered back towards the center of the room. A flick of her claws brought some of the cushions in the corners--which Draco knew were stuffed with Veela feathers to make them responsive to that kind of magic--floating and hovering over, and she deposited them in the middle of the room with a small nod. "Now, sit down and talk to me."

"But they could matter a lot. They hold some influence in our society." Draco took a seat with a sigh and let his wings droop behind him. He had to admit it felt a lot better doing that than huddling behind them when Harry had seemed to be on the verge of rejecting him. Then again, he could hardly control his fear and despair at that moment. "It's easy for _you_ to say ignore them--"

"It's not. Not when they came very close to killing two of my best students, and straining their bond to the point that I thought they might be unable to function on their own."

Draco gaped at her. Testig's eyes were aglow with furious passion. "You never called us your best students before."

" _Two_ of the best. And you have not always excelled in the skills we tried to teach you. But we have seen how you grew in commitment to your bond and the strength of your regard for each other. That is one of the things we strive to teach that not all couples can master. And to see your bond nearly destroyed by someone with an overzealous regard for bloodlines enrages me."

"I...see." Draco couldn't find another response to that. "I thought all Veela mated couples would be committed to each other by instinct?"

"Some distrust their instincts. Some find a mate they don't want--one of a sex they did not envision, or a human mate instead of a Veela one, or a mate who is an outcast from our society for one reason or another. Those situations do not always turn out so pleasantly as yours and Mr. Potter's have."

Draco shuddered. The born Veela who had tried to destroy them had a human mate. "Do the bonds just end?"

"No. But neglect can essentially sever them. The opposite of what happened with you and Mr. Potter."

Draco shifted uncomfortably. "Everything comes back to that."

"We must encourage you to develop as whole people. Leaning on each other too much, trusting him and only him to protect you, or staying awake at night to watch him breathe, or watching every other Veela on the thought that they might take him away, means that you are less than one whole person."

Draco flushed. "You knew I was doing all those things?"

"I can see the way you look at other Veela, and the rest were educated guesses." Testig stared at him evenly. "Mr. Potter is an independent person, but one who also cares deeply for his friends and intimates, from what I have seen. Do you _wish_ to drive him away? Or would you wish to live on terms of harmony with him, instead?"

Draco closed his eyes. "Don't talk to me about him going away." His voice was small and desperate.

"But he must, sometimes. If he goes out on Auror cases and you cannot follow him. If he leaves the room. If he is injured and must spend the time in hospital. _This_ is what I am afraid of, this unnatural closeness encouraged by almost having your bond ruptured." Testig gestured between them. "You might think you are helping yourself and him, staying so close, but it will only lead to more heartbreak in the end."

"I don't always want to stay that close. I just...can't help it."

"We are going to help you help it. We will keep you separate from one another, and gradually lengthen the separations. You will learn to bear being close to others again."

Draco shook and shivered. The thought scared him instead of delighting him, the way Testig seemed to think it should.

"And this is the reason we will do it," said Testig, her voice as soft as the feathers brushing against the cushion when she shifted. "Because you do have greater potential than to be a shadow of your mate."

Draco found himself raising his head, a stronger emotion than fear in his veins. "I would _never_ be that. Harry wouldn't let me be."

Testig smiled, and her wings stilled. "Good. I was hoping you would say that. I find it more difficult to read Mr. Potter. Perhaps because he came to be a Veela by accident, instead of seeking the transformation by potion as you did." She glanced at a _Tempus_ Charm glowing off in the corner that Draco hadn't even noticed, and finally stood. "And it has been fifteen minutes that you spent away from your mate. Did you notice?"

Draco stared at her, then blurted, "Of _course_!"

"I meant, did you notice the passage of time." Testig was pacing towards the door, and she removed the barrier of blue light with a soft flick of her wand. "I suspect not, or you would have been clawing at that earlier."

Draco spread his wings, intending to swoop down the corridor, and Testig caught his wrist. "Do not make us immediately initiate the test again," she said softly, when Draco glared at her.

Draco restrained himself from snapping, and nodded. Testig led him down the corridor towards a room at the far end, and he managed to make himself watch their shadows under the torches instead of around the next corner for Harry.

When they arrived what was presumably the door, Testig turned and studied him. Draco controlled his impatience, since he knew he probably wouldn't get to see Harry if he didn't.

"You can come to us if you have need," Testig said softly. "Remember that."

"I will," said Draco, not intending to use it, and let her reach past him to open the door.

“And fifteen minutes is long enough for right now," Draco heard Harry saying as the door swung open. "I want to see Draco again.”

“I’m here, Harry.”

Harry turned around with his wings twitching so feverishly that Draco thought he was about to take off. Instead of looking at Testig or Helios, the professor who had escorted Harry here, Draco reached out his arms.

Harry surged across the classroom and into them. Draco sighed against his shoulder. Harry kissed him. “You know that we’ll have to do it again, according to them.”

There was a dark undertone to his voice that reassured Draco more than he could possibly know. “I can put up with that,” Draco whispered against Harry's skin, lips barely moving. “I only want to make sure that I’ll see you again after each trial.” _Forever and always._  
  
“I’m yours. Forever and always.”

Draco smiled and Harry kissed him again, softly. Draco let himself lean against that strength, trust in it.

He would have to learn to trust his own, too. That had been the whole point of the professors' lesson.

But for now, it could wait.

**The End.**


End file.
